After four months, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and international lenders increased the loan package granted to Southeast Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SeABank), from US$150 million to $220 million in order to maintain the cooperation with SeABank in re-financing SMEs, women-owned businesses and the climate.

This funding package enables SeABank to better support businesses, narrow the financial gap and ensure sustainable development.

In the strategic roadmap to support women-owned businesses, SeABank has adopted preferential policies, including diversification of corporate credit granting with a competitive loan to value ratio and free digital service packages to support businesses in digital transformation.

"Supporting SMEs and women-owned businesses has always been a part of SeABank's development strategy. Given the COVID-19 pandemic, SeABank takes this as one of its responsibilities in order to contribute to the general economic recovery. Receiving additional funds from IFC and major international lending institutions demonstrated SeABank's ability to access international capital to support businesses, especially SMEs and women-owned enterprises. The additional capital will assist SeABank to strengthen its capability to support the growth of women-owned businesses as well as develop gender-smart action plans and intervention in line with the Bank strategy," said Le Thu Thuy, General Director of SeABank.

In addition, SeABank is also committed to keeping seeking and financing green buildings and resource-efficient projects in alignment with the advice of IFC to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, establish a consistent system for managing environmental, social and governance risks, strengthen the capacity to assess and manage environmental and social risks, support the sustainable development of the bank as well as help the expansion of its green project financing portfolio. -- VNS